Why do I DW?

[selenay]

This came out of a discussion with kimboo_york and tawg on Twitter last night. Feel free to jump in and correct me in comments if I leave things out or get things totally wrong.

We were discussing why people are or aren't migrating from LJ to DW and one of the reasons both KimBoo and I did the migration is the policy differences between the two platforms. Partially I got tired of all the times LJ has been going down due to DDOS attacks, I'll admit, but the policies were a big part of it. The feature changes don't actually bother me much because I'm used to platforms I use getting changed and upgraded as time goes by.

A lot of it, for me, dates back to the big purges and takedowns of a few years ago. Remember Strikethrough? I'm trying to remember dates and feeling terrified that it might be six years ago. DW hadn't launched at that point but it was in development and I think possibly it became more of a priority after that. Strikethrough was also one of several factors that pushed fans from talking about having a fic archive that we, as a community, owned to to forming the OTW and building the AO3.

LJ relies on advertisers for a lot of its revenue. Fair enough. However, it means that if they get a lot of complaints about something they're likely to take a purge first, ask questions later approach. That's what they did during the big purges, that's what they've continued to do, and a lot of fannish journals have been taken out as collateral damage due to that.

One of DW's major mission statements was that they wouldn't have advertising revenue so they'd be independent of that tie. They've committed to not deleting fannish journals and making the platform a safer place to locate our activities. It's the reason they use an uncommon payment processor: PayPal and then Google Checkout got targeted by groups who wanted DW to take journals down so DW found a payment processor who wouldn't give in to those tactics rather than doing a mass purge.

For me, that's one of the big reasons that my main journal archive is over on Dreamwidth. I mirror to LJ because around 50% of my friends are still over there and I don't want to lose contact with them, but I feel more secure knowing that the bulk of what I'm doing is on a platform that supports and encourages fans to do their thing.

Wow, that got long :-D


I've also been thinking about the way that fandom seems to migrate from platform to platform over time. When I first got online, I was in Buffy fandom and most of the activity was based on the Buffy posting board on the WB site. Email lists (that are now Yahoo groups) were the other major way to interact and were the big way to get fic and talk shipping.

Message boards and mailing lists were the main thing for several years and I'd been in Stargate for a year or two before LJ became the inevitable Next Big Thing. LJ stayed the main location for fandom for a long time but started to splinter a few years ago after a lot of the big LJ dramas.

I've noticed over the eighteen months that most of my fandom interaction is migrating to a combination of Tumblr, Twitter and AO3. I use my LJ/DW when I've got something to talk about (like today) that really doesn't suit Tumblr or Twitter's formats (in depth discussions are still much easier in comments on LJ/DW) and when I need to vent or chat about RL stuff.

Tumblr is my happy place where I try not to let the crappier side of RL intrude. Good and happy things, like big comic hauls, totally go on Tumblr. My adventures with IBD stay over here.

And Twitter is where most of my actual fannish interaction seems to be happening now.

I'm sure that in five years there will be another gradual migration to another platform or combination of platforms. I really do hope there isn't a migration away from AO3 because it's genuinely awesome for fic. But it doesn't worry me much that we're migrating from LJ to Tumblr or Twitter and onwards as long as I can keep in contact with everyone during the transition phases. Fandom and fandom interaction has been evolving and shifting ever since people realised they could exchange letters about fannish stuff and it will continue to do so.

I've just learned to go with the flow and move along with it because it's the involvement that matters to me, not the platform we use for it.

Comments

[kimboo_york]

Yes to all of this. I was going to post something similar but you said it all pretty exactly as how I would have. ♥

Strikethrough WAS in 2007, as hard as that is to believe (http://fanlore.org/wiki/Strikethrough); there was also Boldthrough a few months later. Then the 2011 change to comments so that they cannot have subject lines seemed targeted to fan comms such as RP and kink memes. LJ hasn't made much secret of wanting fandom to go away; personally I just heeded the call. ;)

Tawg noted that dw and LJ platforms are pretty much the same, and that's true because dw was designed that way. That's not a bug, that's a feature, as they say; the point is that if LJ is being problematic and hostile, dw is a safe place to move to. While some folk never have any issues using LJ and/or like the changes they've instituted, it seems crazy to me that those who do have complaints still refuse to move. *perplexed shrug*

But, in the end, AO3 has and continues to decimate the fic-posting community on both platforms -- I don't even post fic here anymore, except as links to the stories at AO3. So what's left for fandom at dw/LJ is RPers, kink-memes, and meta. And personal blogs, and really, even for that I'd rather give my $$ to a supportive business like dw. I *do* miss the comms, not for stories so much but commentary and meta and community. But there you go, as we discussed ON TWITTER HAHAHAAAA: fandom floats.

[selenay]

Strikethrough WAS in 2007

That makes me feel so *old*! :-(

LJ hasn't made much secret of wanting fandom to go away; personally I just heeded the call. ;)

So have I. Still mirror to LJ, but my primary blogging is here to the extent where I honestly struggle to remember the LJ tags. Drat.

it seems crazy to me that those who do have complaints still refuse to move

This is what keeps throwing me. People don't like all the changes, the things they dislike are the things DW *isn't changing*, so why stay with LJ?

AO3 has and continues to decimate the fic-posting community on both platforms

It's sparked a trend back to mass, multi-fandom archiving and I'm actually in favour of that. Being able to find everything in one place without having to figure out where the hell the blogs/journals/tiny archives are for every fandom I might have an interest in actually gets me reading more fic than I used to. I post notices here and on Tumblr when I post a new fic but with the subscription options on AO3, I figure most of my hits now come from people using all the AO3 tools.

not for stories so much but commentary and meta and community

This is the aspect I miss most. I used to love having epic comment threads filled with discussion. We can do it a little on Twitter, but that's not a good platform for long thoughtful discussions and neither is Tumblr.

Ah well, fandom evolves and we have to either evolve with it or get left behind completely. And I'd rather evolve :-D

[paranoidangel]

I miss forums, they're so much easier to use than anything else.

But Twitter, Tumblr and A03 seem to be particularly unsuited to fannish interaction to me. A03 is just for posting fic, to which someone might comment if you're lucky, or leave kudos, which means you can't have any conversation with that person (especially if they're a guest). Tumblr is for posting photos, and as a non-visual person, is useless to me (well, except for cute bunny pictures but there are websites for that already). And Twitter really only works in relatively real-time - if all the conversation is at night, then there's not a great deal of point me chiming in on it the next morning. Plus I have enough to keep up with comedians and a few people I know - any more than that and I wouldn't have time to read and TweetDeck wouldn't show me any more (it'll only do 200 new posts at a time).

[selenay]

I really don't miss the closed system on forums :-D So, uh, I think we're always going to disagree there!

I'm a more visual person than you, which I think is why Tumblr is something I'm enjoying. In terms of long discussions, it's not that helpful. LJ/DW are still better mediums for that but it's not completely impossible to have a discussion over there. I've also found that sometimes things can start over there and then move onto a post over here.

Tumblr, for me, has become my happy cheerful place filled with fun and silly gifsets, which is a nice break from the more intense and thoughtful interactions I get on LJ/DW.

Twitter has become one of my main discussion places over the last couple of years. The people I talk with most often are all in different time-zones (including Australia) so I'm used to our chats taking place over days and sometimes having several hours of gap. Commenting on something from several hours ago doesn't worry me much unless it's really obvious that the discussion is over in a very final way. I also like the direct message system there so discussions can be taken off-line (kind of) if it's just between two people and I don't want to clutter up everyone else's time-lines.

AO3 is definitely just for posting fic, but as a medium for doing that I really like it. For a long time, fandom has been fairly splintered with archives and LJs dedicated to specific things (plus the Pit of Voles, but let's not go *there*) and that has had a few benefits. Mostly in having a built-in audience and not needing to search hard: I can guarantee that all the fic in an archive devoted to Tolkien's elves will definitely feature Tolkien's elves.

But in a lot of ways, I've missed the mass archives we used to have in the early days because all the fic was there, in one place. That's what AO3 is bringing back. If I suddenly get a hankering for something I don't normally read, I can just do a tag search and find the fic rather than having to hunt down the comms and small archives where that might be posted. All the subscription and download options also make AO3 much more user-friendly for me. The quantity and type of feedback on fics on AO3 depends a lot on the size of the fandom. I'm getting a crazy number of comments (some very detailed) and kudos on my Avengers fic, way less on other fic. There have even been occasional discussions in my comment threads, which makes me flail happily. I've never written with an eye to what I'll get in terms of feedback and it's been weird (in a good way) getting so much more than normal over on AO3.

With the way that so much of fandom interaction is slowly moving away from LJ and onto more centralised systems, I don't feel like I'm losing much by making AO3 my main fic posting location. It feels like people are commenting more on fics there than they have on fics here for several years and I like the kudos system for the fics where my only thought is "Yay!". I think a lot of fans feel that way: they're more likely to hit the kudos button than they are to type "Loved it!" on every fic they quite liked but couldn't form detailed comments for.

And wow, long comment is LONG. Sorry :-D

[paranoidangel]

I think we will agree to disagree on platforms. But in what way do you mean forums are closed? I would have said they're more open than LJ.

I do find A03 good for fic in obscure fandoms - in at least that's one of the places I look. Although the obscure fandoms I've looked in have been old, so there's been less there than in other places. But if, for example, I'm looking for Doctor Who fic I go to Teaspoon and if I get desperate and go to A03 then I just find the same fic as on Teaspoon, just less of it.

And I like the kudos too. But I find their interface hard to use and I just hate the name because it's not my archive, I have one of my own on my website.

But the best way of getting comments on fic and discussions for me have been on LJ. The most comments I've had on anything have been on sarahjane_fic when it was active and lotr_community is amazing for comments. I think I might have made it into double figures, or nearly. Although it helps to be writing popular stuff - I have a tendency to write things that only two other people in the world would appreciate.

But anything I've posted on A03 outside of Yuletide or Remix has got at most a couple of kudos and no comments. It's so much less effort and gets more readers to post fic elsewhere.

[selenay]

But in what way do you mean forums are closed

My experience with forums in the past has been that they're very much a single fandom (or even pairing) specific with chatter about other topics heavily frowned on. In some cases, there has been active discouragement from thinking about trying out new things. That could have been specific to the forums I've been on and I'll admit that it's been a long time since I was last a regular on a forum. They also vary, I think, from forum to forum in how easy it is to join in with the chatter. Some forums are welcoming, some aren't. I think we're both looking for different things in our online interactions :-D

Older fandoms are definitely less well-represented on AO3 than newer ones. If a fandom is no longer particularly active then not much of the fic has been transferred. Likewise, if a fandom is older and less active then the comments/kudos count tends to be lower.

Writing things with a smaller audience definitely affects how much/what kind of feedback you get. I tend to get a lot less feedback on my Yuletide fic than I do on anything else I write.

For me, it's so much less effort and gets *more* readers to post to AO3. Plus it's less work in terms of all the formatting and putting together the stuff on my website.

I like the name because it's an archive that we, as a fandom, own rather than something owned by a small select group or a corporation.

I think this is another thing we'll have to agree to disagree on :-D

[paranoidangel]

I've had completely the opposite experience with forums. They'll be subforums for eg the TV programme then subforums within it, but there'll always be at least one subforum for off topic chat on any subject.

[tawg.livejournal.com]

You are so lucky that you didn't mention the strikethrough on twitter - I wrote a paper on it at University (Media and Sexuality, awesome subject). The strikethrough of '07 had nothing to do with advertising, and everything to do with an online vigilante group called Warriors for Innocence who track down and report peadophilic content online (and they seem pretty shady but whatevs) contacting LJ about there being blogs that were devoted to recounting sexual crimes committed against children on their serves (which there were - and there has been some debate about whether they were fantasy blogs or true accounts, but none of the blogs flagged by WfI were fandom related). LJ claimed that they were not responsible for moderating content (which is in their TOS) and therefore were not legally accountable for any undesirable or offensive journals. WfI responded that since the materials were hosted on LJs servers, LJ was hosting child pornography and WfI would be taking the issue to the FBI.

It was LJ's response that hurt the fandom, but I think the more tragic outcome was that communities for survivors of abuse were also shut down as LJ froze anything that looked even remotely dodgy. Ony a few blogs were shut down for good, though a number were inconvenienced as LJ sorted through everything that had been flagged and responded to the fallout. It actually led to some interesting discussion about how to interpret the ages in fanart, for example. It also led to some less productive discussions like "Does this mean that if I write a fic about a murder LJ will report me to the police as a murderer". The response was fast and dumb and problematic, yes. But it was also a company trying to avoid getting dragged into a child pornography investigation, and I honestly wonder how DW would handle a similar situation.

How's that for an internet history lesson? ;)

[selenay]

Pretty good history lesson :-D

I didn't mention Strikethrough on Twitter because it's such a huge, complicated, emotive mess :-D I watched it as it all went down and I remember that it turned out to be WfI going on a witch hunt, although all the confusion at the time made it really difficult for a lot of us to work out what was truth, what was rumour, and what was just crazy scare-mongering.

I completely agree that it was LJ's response that hurt fandom most. Not just the arbitrary shutdown of journals, it was also their changing story about what they were doing and their incredibly poor communications in general. Fandom lost a lot of their trust in LJ over that and it was compounded by Boldthrough a couple of months later.

LJ hadn't been happy about fandom for a while, they were even more opposed to fandom after Strikethrough, and their actions have demonstrated regularly that they'd prefer us to be elsewhere.

It wasn't the main reason I made the switch, but Strikethrough combined with several other incidents (FFN purges, the Fanlib debacle to name two that stand out) is what pushed fandom from complaining to trying to do something productive. Namely, trying to build communities on platforms we own so we aren't reliant on companies like LJ to host our fic, art and discussions. Without those incidents, we wouldn't have the AO3 and DW might have sunk before it could get anywhere.

I grabbed a DW invite as soon as they were available but I didn't make the major transition over here until around three years ago, when the combination of feature changes and severe LJ-shakiness rendered LJ close to useless to me. Nothing I've seen since has made me regret that decision, although I haven't chosen to go so far as closing down my LJ entirely because I don't want to lose contact with the people who haven't made the switch.

My gut feeling is that DW's response to something like WfI wouldn't be the same as LJ's. They've demonstrated several times that they won't respond to pressure to remove legal (but potentially objectionable) content and that's why they can't use PayPal or Google Checkout as their payment processor. The lack of advertising does give them the ability to resist the kind of pressure other sites have been under. It helps that one of the founders and owners is involved in fandom as well because there's a better understanding of who and what we are.

When it comes to definitely illegal content (the kind of thing WfI were talking about), my gut feeling is that DW would have to consider taking down content. However, I don't think they'd do the kind of comprehensive purge LJ attempted and their communication would definitely be better. It has been in the past when payment processing has gone down due to DW's refusal to remove certain journals - they explain what's happening and why very fast instead of waiting for rumour to spread. My feeling is they'd investigate and get in contact with the legal team at the OTW to make sure that their response was appropriate. So although they might eventually have to take down content, I don't think it would be handled in the same way that LJ did and I'm hopeful that fandom, as a whole, wouldn't be harmed if something like that arose there.

As divisive and horrible as Strikethrough was at the time, it does feel like a lot of good came out of it. Fandom now has options that are set up to be friendly to us, the AO3 is the best fic archive I've used, and the debate around ages in fic and fanart has been useful in the long run.